7 Mistakes New Real Estate Agents Should Avoid

You have got your real estate agent license, and you are ready to hit the ground running. You have taken care of all the things you are supposed to do to achieve success. However, have you thought about the mistakes that you should avoid? Every profession has a learning curve associated with it, and so does the profession of real estate career.

New real estate agents make some common mistakes because there are many aspects of the real estate business that cannot be learned in a real estate school education. Yet each mistake can set back your career. We asked real estate professionals what were the mistakes they made when they were starting off as new real estate agents? What advice would they give to those who are starting a real estate career?

Common Mistakes Real Estate Agents Make

All new agents have tremendous potential, but along with that energy and excitement to build a great professional niche for themselves, they end up committing certain blunders. It is essential to avoid the following seven mistakes to build future success.

1. Not Having A Real Estate Business Plan

Real Estate Business Plan

The first mistake to avoid that many new real estate agents make is to begin without a clearly thought-out business plan. Most agents believe that they can start and gradually decide the direction in which they are going to take their business. They trust that when they work at a brokerage, they will gradually get to learn the ropes and will have time to create a strategy.

You must not forget that from day one, you are in business for yourself. You need to start thinking like a businessman. You should follow all the right mix of business practices. Try to clearly identify what are your personal goals, what kind of services you want to offer to your clients, and which sector of the real estate market do you want to target?

2. Lack Of Follow Up With Clients

The next mistake you must avoid as a new real estate agent is not ensuring that you follow up with your clients. All real estate professionals state that the primary skill to learn in order to survive in this business is the art of right and adequate communication. It is highly important for an agent to create time in the daily schedule to contact your clients.

Your income depends on getting the hard to come by listing. You are investing a lot to get these client leads, so it does not make sense to lose them due to a lack of a communication plan. Have a block of your time marked for placing a phone call to each of your clients. Segregate them into different categories, such as potential clients, qualified clients, and active clients. Ask them about their contact preferences, and make sure you have a review every week of the follow-ups you have done.

3. Errors In Marketing And Advertising Costs

Marketing Mistake

One of the most common mistakes that agents must learn to avoid is getting the marketing plan wrong and either overspending or underspending when it comes to advertising. We understand that as agents, it is hard to allocate money when your income is barely trickling in. Still, it is important to be aware of how any mistake in this aspect can adversely affect your business.

A. Mistake In Marketing Strategy

When you are a new real estate agent, you will spend time qualifying all the leads you have of sellers. But, as your business starts to expand, you must try to establish within the first or second interaction whether a client is a match for you or not.

You must have your target market and your target clients clearly identified. Once this is done, try to identify the best channels of marketing on which you will find a majority of your potential buyers and sellers.

Make sure that the advertising strategy is geared to reach the right category of real estate clients. This strategy will also help you to connect with similar future clients through the referrals that you get from a satisfied client after a good sale.

B. Mistake In Advertising Budget

In this industry, you need to pay first to generate business that can turn into sales. You have to constantly search for customers to get a new listing. The right mix of advertising can help you get more local buyers and sellers.

Digital marketing, advertising on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn by including the right mix of categories tags or opting for local search engine optimization services are all essential advertising opportunities that should be included in your marketing and advertising strategy. Care should be taken that you neither overspend nor underspend. Pay the right amount to attract the right kind of home sellers.

4. Marketing To The Wrong Client Category

Another common mistake that many new agents end up making is trying to market and attract a client without considering the client category. Do you want to help first-time home buyers and sellers? Are you looking to cater to more high-value clients? Do you specialize in a particular kind of property category? What sort of income you wish to take home will also influence your choice when it comes to identifying the category of your target market.

5. Not Utilizing Online Sellers Leads Generation Platforms

Lead Generation

Among the mistakes, this one happens to be the easiest to avoid. Although all new real estate agents understand how important seller lead generation is for their real estate business, many fail to take advantage of technology when it comes to generating sales leads. Even if you have a few clients currently, it is still essential to keep ongoing efforts to find a new client.

The online seller leads generation platforms can help you reduce the time and effort it takes to search for new clients. A popular platform like Dorrmat can provide you with a continuous supply of quality seller leads. The registered agents are also given a host of other benefits which can really help you boost your business as a new real estate agent.

6. Wrong Home Pricing

A costly mistake the real estate agents make when they are new to the business is the pricing of the home that they are selling. It is necessary to learn to avoid this error as your future can be impacted, and this is could affect your success. Now, this common mistake can happen in two ways.

Overpricing A Home

New agents must learn to trust the Competitive Marketing Analysis (CMA). If you have correctly factored in the location of the property, the condition of the home, and the local real estate property market conditions, then you must learn to negotiate effectively with your sellers.

Wrong listing price can lead to the property remaining unsold and then would require the sellers to reduce the asking price, which may at times be even lower than the value initially suggested by the agents. This happens because the longer a property remains listed, the fewer buyers it will attract.

Underpricing A Home

On the other end of the value of a property is listing a home at a price lower than what it can actually fetch. This mistake usually happens to many new agents as they are still thinking from the point of what they learned in the real estate school. They are not having access to many tools available to realtors regarding the financial aspects of the real estate business.

As an agent, you should know as much as possible about the changes in the property values. For instance, no real estate school had taught their new real estate agents how to handle business in the middle of a pandemic. Therefore, it is necessary to spend time understanding the changes. You may even want to talk to senior brokers and ask for their opinion.

7. Not Building Business Relationships

Business Relationship

One of the mistakes that affect all real estate professionals at the start is not being able to build and expand their sphere of influence. Agents do not exist in a vacuum. We would say that for all real estate agents, it is a must to build and nurture new relationships.

Fellow Real Estate Professional

New agents must always have a mentor who has a wide experience and deep understanding of the local real estate market. A mentor could give you advice and help you pick understand the techniques of how to sell effectively. It is always good to have someone you could call and ask for suggestions when you run into a sales issue. Many new agents fail to develop these kinds of relationships at the start of their careers. There are categories on which you must focus.

People Engaged In Other Real Estate Career

As much as a mentor, it is also equally important to connect with other professionals who are all in the real estate industry. You need to strike up relationships with bankers, home construction company personnel, home staging professionals, property inspectors, and more.

These people will all be part of your professional sphere. The wider this circle is, the better it will be for you to get future business. One real estate agent said that as a rookie, he used to have a target of meeting at least three new people from this profession every week. Coffee shops, gyms, standing in the check-out line at Costco, he used every chance to give a short friendly introduction to another person.

Your Past Customers

One of the biggest mistakes that real estate agents make early in their career is not building relationships with the homeowners whom they have helped to sell their property. This is a mistake that you must learn how to avoid as new agents.

It is not enough to get a referral as soon as the sales process is completed. This seller is someone with whom you have had weeks of interactions. You have met their families, and you are aware of many aspects of their lives. This basically is a relationship that needs to be nurtured for years. It is common for real estate agents to maintain these relationships for years.

Tips For New Real Estate Agents

Now, before we conclude our article, we would like to share some of the tips and ideas that our experts used to navigate the challenging initial years as new agents.

A. Analyse Your Mistakes

It is important to identify your missteps, understand the reason for them, and take course corrective measures at the earliest. Most of the mentioned mistakes can be avoided.

B. Review Your Week

You might already be regularly reviewing the upcoming week. However, you need to form a habit of having a weekly review of how things went for you. Write down the things you got correct and things to improve.

C. Get To Know Local Market

It is integral as an agent to have complete knowledge of the market. This knowledge enables you to provide the best guidance to your customers.

Summary

Becoming a real estate agent is indeed a great career move. Real estate has minimal barriers to entry and education, requires a simple process to get your new real estate license, but offers great income potential with a flexible schedule. However, it is important to first know all about the seven common mistakes that can adversely affect your real estate career growth.

Every year, many young people enter the real estate industry with fresh eyes and hopes of creating their own path to success. There are many pitfalls to avoid. The ones we have mentioned are the most common ones.

By being prepared and by utilizing the suggestions given above, you can ensure that you navigate the initial years as a new real estate agent in a smooth manner. Remember, to achieve real estate career success, you must not only do the right thing but also avoid mistakes real estate agents make in the initial years.